Today's Mudline

May 24, 2018

Donald Trump Jr. on pre-Trump presidents: "Weaklings."....Rep. Maxine Waters on Trump: "How long do we have to suffer his gigantic ego and narcissistic behavior?"....Sen. John Kennedy on Kelly Sadler's comment on McCain: "Everything happens for a reason. And sometimes the reason is you're stupid and made a bad decision."....Stoneman Douglas survivor Cameron Kasky on Trump NRA speech: "A professional liar who will say anything to appease whatever crowd he's at."....NM congressional candidate Pat Davis in TV ad: "F*** the NRA. Their pro-gun policies have resulted in dead children, dead mothers, and dead fathers."....Ted Nugent on Parkland survivors: "Liars...Poor, mush-brained children...It hurts me to say this, but the evidence is irrefutable; they have no soul."....Debbie Wasserman Schulz on NRA: "Just shy of a terrorist organization."....Rudy Giuliani on Stormy Daniels attorney Michael Avenatti: "I don't get involved with pimps."....Trump: "Senator Cryin' Chuck Schumer."....David Cay Johnston on Trump: "A man with this desperate need for adoration. He is an empty vessel...His only philosophy is the glorification of Donald."....Trump on Mueller investigation: "The $10,000,000 Russian Witch Hunt."....Fox News host Neil Cavuto on Trump: "I guess you're too busy draining the swamp to ever stop and smell the stink you're creating."....Mark Sumner on Trump China deal: "Simply the largest case of pay-to-play in history."....NRA President-elect Oliver North: "Never believe an Iranian, because if their lips are moving they are lying."....Trump on Iran agreement: "A horrible, one-sided deal that should have never ever been made...Iran lied, big time."....Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Iran deal: "A disaster for our region, a disaster for the peace of the world."....Iranian President Hassan Rouhani on the US: "Never adheres to its commitments."....Roman Polanski on #MeToo: "Total hypocrisy...A collective hysteria."....Jay Rosen on Trump: "He's not attempting to persuade a majority of the country to his side...He's trying to cement a psychological bond with his core supporters that can't be broken."....Liam Kirkcaldy: "Donald Trump has banned Irn-Bru from his Scottish hotel, despite the fact that it's one of the few drinks which could survive a nuclear war without being affected. You'd think that would appeal to the man."....Tim O'Connor on Trump's Irn-Bru ban: "Effectively a declaration of war on Scotland."....Bill Maher: "Everything Trump does is modeled on the mob...He's using a legitimate front business, in this case the White House, to enrich the family...Who's his worst enemy? The FBI."....

Daily Briefing

Deep buzz for the content-deprived

Every weekday, while you get showered and dressed, we pluck these dewy-
fresh, breaking stories from the info-clogged byways of the datasphere.
Pour yourself a cup of coffee and stoke up on everything you need to know,
or at least enough to fake it.

In 1977, the San Joaquin Valley—the swath of agricultural land that runs through central California—was designated a disaster area. Record-low runoff and scant rainfall had created drought conditions. At the beginning of Christmas week, the weather was normal in Bakersfield, the city at the Valley’s southern end, but in the early hours of December 20th a strong wind began to blow from the Great Basin through the Tehachapi Mountains. Hitting the ground on the downslope, it lofted a cloud of loose topsoil and mustard-colored dust into the sky. The plume rose to five thousand feet; dust blotted out the sun four counties away...

Last night at the Sundance Film Festival, Joseph Gordon-Levitt premiered the first three episodes of his innovative new variety show, HitRecord on TV, featuring short films, skits, songs, animations, live performances and stories that were crowd-sourced from hundreds of collaborators. But you could be forgiven for thinking that he could do it all himself: Not only does the star of Looper and (500) Days of Summer host the show with sunny, dapper, Fallonesque optimism, he plays piano and drums, tap-dances a musical number with Tony Danza, writes and sings song lyrics, is abducted by an alien Carla Gugino, interviews John Waters and does a backflip...

First she stopped heating her apartment, putting furniture in front of the radiators to try to forget they were there. She unscrewed most of the light bulbs, turned off the hot water, and sold her iPhone, her watch, her television and even her curtains to feed herself and her 2-year-old son.Then she wrote about it in a blog post titled “Hunger Hurts” that soon spread widely...

An investigation into charter schools' dishonest and unconstitutional science, history, and "values" lessons.

When public-school students enrolled in Texas’ largest charter program open their biology workbooks, they will read that the fossil record is “sketchy.” That evolution is “dogma” and an “unproved theory” with no experimental basis. They will be told that leading scientists dispute the mechanisms of evolution and the age of the Earth. These are all lies...

"Too Much Estrogen": The Golden Globes, Chris Christie And Men Who Don't Want To Share Culture

Brit Hume thinks Chris Christie is paying for a "feminized atmosphere," in which his naturally tough guy (read: male) behavior has been erroneously cast as bullying. Meanwhile, the NY Post's film critic Kyle Smith's take on the Golden Globes was that there was just "too much estrogren." These are just this weekend's examples of men having a hard time-sharing culture...

For good reason, the Internet lit up on Monday with debate over Bill Keller’s strange column “Heroic Measures,” in the Times, which, like a recent Guardian post by his wife, Emma Keller, addresses the ethics of publicly chronicling one’s battles with cancer. (Emma Keller’s post was taken down by the Guardian on Monday.) The occasion for both editorials are the tweets and blog posts of Lisa Bonchek Adams, who is being treated for metastatic breast cancer (Stage IV). Adams, as Emma Keller writes, has tweeted more than a hundred and sixty thousand times, often about her illness. (A recent example: “Another shoutout to the palliative team. Pain management specialists are some of my heroes @sloan_kettering.”)...

Joel Flickinger’s two-bedroom home in the hills above Oakland, Calif., hums with custom-built computing gear. Just inside the front door, in a room anyone else might use as a den, he’s placed a desk next to a fireplace that supports a massive monitor, with cables snaking right and left toward two computers, each about the size of a case of beer. Flickinger has spent more than $20,000 on these rigs and on a slower model that runs from the basement. They operate continuously, cranking out enough heat to warm the house and racking up $400 a month in electric bills. There isn’t much by way of décor, other than handwritten inspirational Post-it notes:

“I make money easily,” one reads.

“Money flows to me.”

“I am a money magnet.”

Flickinger, 37, a software engineer and IT consultant by trade, doesn’t leave the house much these days. He’s a full-time Bitcoin miner...

"We Are Terrified As A People": Nigeria's Gays Live In Fear Amid New Crackdown

I love book clubs. I love reading for them, I love talking to them, and if I had my choice I’d probably do nothing but visit them to promote my books. Where else do you find people who have already made a commitment to read your book, and to read it closely enough to discuss it in a knowledgeable fashion with their friends? The best insights I’ve ever been offered about my work have come from book club members. In a world full of readings attended by the inevitable, random 5-to-10 bookstore browsers and 20-year-old assistant night managers who consistently mangle the title of your work, book clubs are an oasis of intelligent thought and discussion...